Masturbation Challenge Interfaces - Fap Gauntlet and Cock Hero

In doing some research for an upcoming project, I've been looking
through different internet related interfaces for stimulation display
during masturbation. Or, in non-faux-academic parlance: jackin' games.
I figured I might as well write up my notes on the interfaces and
ideas behind Fap Gauntlets and Cock Hero.

No. Not that kind of gauntlet.

Both of these "games" focus on masturbating for as long as possible,
using different properties (speed, pressure, etc...). The differences
come in how they're built, and the interfaces they use to set the
properties of the game.

Fap Gauntlets

A fap gauntlet is simply an image thread where with each image posted
by a forum member, masturbation metrics are provided for that post.
These types of threads seem to pop up on chan forums of various shapes
and sizes, though they seem to be popular on hentai and furry related
boards.

The metrics dictated usually consist of:

Time to spend masturbating to picture

Pressure to use

Strokes per second

The fchan furry porn board has a couple of fap gauntlet threads
live at the moment. However, note that these threads die over time,
and will most likely not be live in weeks/months after this post is
made, but are valid as of 2012-11-19:

While googling around for more info on this, I found that someone had
actually written an automatic fap gauntlet generator. This is a
python program that automatically indexes images off 4chan
threads, then uses wxwidgets to display pictures from them, with
random timings, pressures, and stroke speeds.

Ever wonder what images you get when you just google "porn"?

While it can't be seen in the picture above, the stroke speed is set
by the color of the font fading from green to black and back to green
at different speeds per picture, to set a visual cue.
FapGauntlet also allows you to choose a local directory of images
(which is good because as of this writing the regex for the forum
scraper is broken). Once you're all done, it'll also give you a
printout of your stats, that looks something like this:

These videos are usually upwards of an hour long, containing multiple
scenes. The text instructions are now inherent in the properties of
the video, as the length is simply the length of the scene, and the
speed actually becomes dynamic, since it is set to the changing BPM of
a song.

Visual cues scroll along the bottom of the screen, for those
that have absolutely no sense of time (if someone makes one of these
videos to some properly weird math rock with ridiculous time
signatures, I'll love you forever)...

As an added "bonus", some authors of cock hero videos will insert
messages along the bottom of the screen to warn or inspire the player
to greater speeds/pressures or upcoming breaks, or else just to be dorky.

Messages displayed at the bottom of some cock hero vids

There's a few key differences in these interfaces that make them
both viable. I see Cock Hero as a more cohesive experience;
sense is integrated with command, since the temporal and speed
elements are just properties of the video and sound. However, the
compilation aspect is handled by a single creator (though could
certainly be automated much in the same way FapGauntlet works),
so you're currently stuck with whatever they like. For Fap Gauntlets,
well, there's forms of porn that simply don't have enough animated
content to work as a Cock Hero medium. There's certainly enough hentai
out there to fill a few Cock Hero rounds, but furry porn might get
one, maybe two, and would require encoding from flash animations
mostly, making it a horribly time consuming process. Since fap
gauntlets are based on a message board thread, the community aspect
could be seen as crowdsourced masturbation directions, which in and of
itself could be a new/emerging fetish.

Both fap gauntlets and cock hero could be implemented via hardware
means, simply taking the movement and time commands (as well as
pressure if the toy actually has capabilities for that) and mapping
them to a toy. This could work for either vibrators or things like the
RealTouch or Virtual Hole.

The interfaces for masturbation challenges, while keeping their
vocabulary male focused, seem genderless at their core. Everyone
exists in time, speed and pressure are valid metrics for multiple
different kinds of genetalia. There's some interesting questions as to
whether the interface actually appeals to a certain type/gender, but
I'll leave that for the gender theory and games bloggers.

Cock Hero and Fap Gauntlets interfaces provide specific communities
with new ways to interact with porn based on available content. Be it
still media or motion, they both have their place in the masturbation
challenge landscape. I wouldn't be surprised to see these interfaces
continue to evolve into new and more immersive experiences, or be
co-opted by toy makers in the future.

(PS: I will also pay good money for an impressionist painting of the
masturbation challenge landscape.)